March 1 Cornell Cooperative Extension in Fulton and Montgomery Counties will open its new offices in Canajoharie. The new offices will be located at 50 E. Main St. in the village and will occupy the entire basement floor of the United Methodist Church of Canajoharie.

Cooperative Extension programming will continue throughout the month of February as staff makes preparations for the move.

While moving is a hardship for the association we are confident the new space suits our needs and allows us the flexibility to continue offering vital programs throughout Fulton and Montgomery counties.

Being both smaller and nontraditional office space, the basement floor of the church offers considerable savings in rent for CCEFM.

We looked at several spaces throughout Fulton and Montgomery counties and the 50 E. Main St. location in Canajoharie offered us the most significant cost saving. The savings allowed us to avoid deeper programming and staff cuts.

This will not mark the first time a Cooperative Extension office has been located in Canajoharie. In 1914, Cooperative Extension in Montgomery County got its start in Canajoharie at an office at 12 Barclay St. The Montgomery County Cooperative Extension office would later move to Fonda.

Budget cuts from both its sponsor counties for 2011 forced CCEFM to look for new office space. Locations were pursued in both Fulton and Montgomery Counties. Attempts to renegotiate the terms of CCEFM's lease on its current office space in Johnstown failed to yield needed savings.

While its offices will be located in Canajoharie, CCEFM will continue to provide programming throughout Fulton and Montgomery counties.

In the past we've held meetings and events at our main office, however, the vast majority of our programming is spread out among the many municipalities in the two counties.

The CCEFM offices at the Old Johnstown Hotel in Johnstown will close at the end of the month. CCEFM moved to the Old Johnstown Hotel in March 2002 when the association closed its Fonda and Gloversville offices following the consolidation of the Cornell Cooperative Extension associations in Fulton and Montgomery counties in 1997. The merger of the Fulton and Montgomery Cooperative Extensions was the first consolidation of its kind. Since that time other county extensions have also merged.  Shared service agreements and regional programming among extensions statewide is also common and becoming the norm in times of tight resources.